This morning, my mother made the vague accusation that “we read too many books.” 

You see, as I was showering this morning, I heard a loud and insistent knocking coming from the hallway.  Thinking it was my mom with an urgent warning (“A spider has been sighted in the front yard!  BATTLE STATIONS!”), I turned off the showerhead and called out, “Mom?  Is that you? Is everything okay?”  I didn’t get a response, but the knocking ceased, so I shrugged and proceeded to rinse the shampoo away. 

Moments later, the knocking started again, but this time it came from above.  It was arrhythmic, moving around above my head.  It sounded angry, desperate and irrational.  I called again for my mom; again, she didn’t answer.  I figured perhaps she had left for work, and I was left alone in the house: gorgeous, naked and wet, with an angry someone (or something) stomping around in the attic.  I tried to ignore it as best as I could, but the louder it got, the more my adrenaline surged.  When I get scared, I get angry, and after a particularly skull-splitting and dangerous crash directly above my head, I let loose with a colorful screech of expletives.  I started to stomp around myself as I slammed the faucets closed and tore my towel from its bar.  I started yelling for my mom again, hoping that she hadn’t in fact left for work yet, that she would have a rational explanation for the ruckus surrounding my bathroom.  The irregular thumping was now joined by an ominous scraping, dragging sound, and I was immediately convinced that there was a hoard of zombies in the attic, looking for a way to break down into the living area and seize the lovely brilliant brain storming around below.  “What the fuck, you jackass motherfuckers?!” I hissed as I clutched my head as if to protect the precious gray matter beneath and burst into the hallway.  “What the hell is going on around here?  Why don’t we have any shotguns in this house?!” I said the moment my mother materialized from her bedroom. 

“Oh, honey, I forgot to tell you that we have a roofer coming out today to repair the shingles before the big rainstorm tomorrow.”  She glanced up as another cacophony of thuds, scrapes, and frenetic pounding sounded above.  “Guess he came earlier than expected.”

I glared at her, clinging to both my towel and my skull as I absorbed this bit of intelligence.  Narrowing my eyes, I said, “So there isn’t a hoard of zombies in the attic?”

She shook her head. “No, just the roofer.  I’ve been waiting for you to finish your shower so I could tell you.”  She paused, and cocked an ear towards the ceiling. “Wow, it’s really loud on your side of the house.  I didn’t really hear anything while I was doing my hair.  Huh.”  And she spun on her heel and wandered back into her room, leaving me to will my heart rate to resume a normal pace. 

Ten minutes later, just before leaving for work, she came back and poked her head into my room.  “You know,” she said, “I think we read too many books.  Normal people don’t immediately assume that zombies are in the house.”

At least she used “we” and didn’t just tease me for being a tad neurotic.  After all, she hadn’t reacted in the slightest to my very serious demand for a zombie-killing shotgun.  She didn’t even blink when I asked her that she was sure it was indeed a live roofer making the noise.  As normal as it was for me to jump to that conclusion, it was just as normal for her to consider it a valid possibility.   Not only did she think my reaction was perfectly reasonable, but it took ten solid minutes for it to dawn on her that zombies are never going to be the cause of such racket. 

Of course, after she pointed out the absurdity of my original conclusion, I had to concede that it was completely insane.  After all, how would they have gotten into the attic in the first place?  Zombies can’t climb!  Funny how irrational one becomes when adrenaline takes over, isn’t it?